Energy Justice and the Capability Approach—Introduction to the Special Issue (original) (raw)
Related papers
Energy and the Good Life: Capabilities as the Foundation of the Right to Access Energy Services
Journal of Human Development and Capabilities , 2021
Access to an adequate level of uninterrupted, high quality, affordable, sufficient and useful energy services varies dramatically across countries. While some nations still experience energy poverty and struggle to fulfil basic needs, others consume well over what is considered sufficient to sustain wellbeing and human flourishing. These imbalances represent fundamental injustices that must be urgently addressed and resolved. Given current inequalities, this paper asks, in general, whether it is possible to establish a human right to energy and, more specifically, whether the Capabilities Approach (CA) can provide a solid theoretical foundation for the claim to a human right to access energy services. We argue, on the one hand, that it is possible to identify concrete ranges of individual energy consumption that, if “translated” into useful energy services, constitute the adequate (not just minimal) preconditions for achieving core capabilities in different geographical contexts. On the other hand, we use the CA as a normative framework to argue for a capabilitybased human right to access necessary energy services such as nutrition, cooking fuel and electricity. We support these claims in two main ways. First, by looking at how individual energy consumption impacts human development and wellbeing. Second, we offer a comparison between access to specific energy services and the Human Development Index (HDI). The human right to access necessary energy services should be understood in both moral and legal terms. It should be integrated within both the international United Nations human rights framework and international energy law
New frontiers and conceptual frameworks for energy justice
This article explores how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making and highlight the moral and equity dimensions of energy production and use. It defines "energy justice" as a global energy system that fairly distributes both the benefits and burdens of energy services, and one that contributes to more representative and inclusive energy decision-making. The primary contribution of the article is its focus on six new frontiers of future energy justice research. First is making the case for the involvement of non-Western justice theorists. Second is expanding beyond humans to look at the Rights of Nature or non-anthropocentric notions of justice. Third is focusing on cross-scalar issues of justice such as embodied emissions. Fourth is identifying business models and the co-benefits of justice. Fifth is better understanding the tradeoffs within energy justice principles. Sixth is exposing unjust discourses. In doing so, the article presents an agenda constituted by 30 research questions as well as an amended conceptual framework consisting of ten principles. The article argues in favor of "justice-aware" energy planning and policymaking, and it hopes that its (reconsidered) energy justice conceptual framework offers a critical tool to inform decision-making.
Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2021
This paper explores how the Capability Approach (CA) can enrich the concept of energy justice by assessing the impact of two cases of digitalisation in the energy sector. Digitalisation promises technical solutions to pressing challenges in the energy sector such as climate change and fossil fuel scarcity. Current academic and popular discussions of these solutions are dominated by a technoutopian ideal, which sometimes obscures complex ethical and social challenges. Furthermore, technology assessment in the energy sector often focuses on environmental and economic aspects of sustainability, while issues of energy justice or broader ethical concerns are often a low priority. In this paper, we explore whether Nussbaum's version of the CA can be used as a systematic approach to the assessment of technological options that helps bring energy justice into the spotlight. Drawing on examples from two different areas of the energy system, namely, smart grids for the electricity sector and autonomous vehicles for the mobility sector, we demonstrate that the CA provides a normative framework that allows for aspects of individual deliberation and as such is well suited as a normative metric for the conception of energy justice in social science.
Science and Engineering Ethics
In this paper, we apply the capabilities approach—with the addition of capability ceilings—to energy justice. We argue that, to ensure energy justice, energy policies and scenarios should consider enabling not only minimal capability thresholds but also maximum capability ceilings. It is permissible, perhaps even morally required, to limit the capabilities of those above the threshold if it is necessary for enabling those below the threshold to reach the level required by justice. We make a distinction between tragic and non-tragic conflicts of capabilities: tragic conflicts are instances when one cannot raise an agent’s capabilities above the threshold that justice requires without pushing someone else below the threshold or restricting someone from reaching the threshold. In contrast, a non-tragic choice is when increasing someone above the threshold required by justice does not entail pushing someone else’s capabilities below the threshold. We utilise this framework to discuss en...
Energy justice and development
S Bouzarovski, S Fuller and T Reames (eds) Handbook on Energy Justice, 2023
Energy systems of production and consumption in least-developed countries are poorly understood, and policy formulation frequently occurs in absence of empirical data (Baka and Vaishnava, 2020; Bazilian et al., 2014). Consequently, research in development studies often fails to account for the centrality of energy access to processes of development in poorer countries of the global South (Schiffer, 2020). For many of these countries, limited energy use creates barriers to economic growth and development (Eggoh et al., 2011). Addressing these barriers forms the basis for the UN Sustainable Development Goals. While SDG 7 foregrounds energy access and use within wider development goals (UNDP, 2015), justice issues are not explicitly included (Munro et al., 2017). In this chapter, we aim to broaden understandings of energy justice by opening a dialogue with development thinking as it has emerged, evolved and changed since the post-World War II era. We suggest this entails scrutinizing energy justice principles from multiple, situated perspectives, adjusted to the conditions that shape policy action in contexts in the global South that have been recipients of development interventions. It also involves moving beyond the economic and technological perspectives on energy that have permeated energy debates (Axon and Morrissey, 2020) and towards greater recognition of people-centred views of energy, and the politics and power relations embedded within changing energy systems (Healy and Barry, 2017).
Let capabilities ring: Operationalizing energy justice in Guinea
Energy research and social sciences, 2021
The need to encompass energy decisions within a broader perspective of ethical concerns has recently been advocated. This article subscribes to this view and adopts a normative framework founded on both the energy justice framework and the capability approach to assess the data of an electricity access survey of 3,680 households in Guinea based on the ESMAP's Multi-Tier Framework. Energy justice appeals to a range of moral theories and perspectives but a capability-focused approach can offer the necessary space for a coherent interpretation. As an approach more centered on individuals it can also help identifying how certain groups or people (such as those of our survey) may be more vulnerable than others to certain impacts of our energy systems. The paper thereby adopts an ex-ante as well as an ex-post approach by using the empirical results to help oper-ationalize our energy justice framework but also by applying this framework for assessing the energy situation in Guinea. Three main goals are pursued: (1) to provide yet unpublished data on electricity access in Guinea; (2) to discuss what this country as well as other developing countries could do to move closer to energy justice; and (3) to further the discussion on energy justice, and how it can be operationalized, by discussing the challenges of a multidimensional framework and by proposing indicators. It ends with recommendations for fostering energy justice in this country.
Energy justice: Conceptual insights and practical applications
Though it is far from obvious, concepts from justice, philosophy, and ethics can significantly inform energy consumers and producers. This study details how energy justice can serve as a novel conceptual tool for philosophers and ethicists that better integrates usually distinct distributive and procedural justice concerns. Energy justice serves as an important analytical tool for energy researchers striving to understand how values get built into energy systems or to resolve common energy problems. Energy justice presents a useful decision-making tool that can assist energy planners and consumers in making more informed energy choices. Our energy justice framework has elements of Kantian ethics, which takes each person as an end. It has libertarian elements of freedom and choice, suggesting that good societies present people with a set of opportunities or substantial freedoms, so they can choose to exercise these or not. It is plu-ralist about value, holding that capabilities for people are different and also that their own interests vary. It is concerned with justice as recognition, noting that failures of procedural justice can result in discrimination and marginalization. It, also, has elements focused on utilitarianism and welfare, attempting to improve the quality of life for all people, as defined by their capabilities.
Energy Justice: A Conceptual Review
Energy Justice: A Conceptual Review, 2016
Energy justice has emerged as a new crosscutting social science research agenda which seeks to apply justice principles to energy policy, energy production and systems, energy consumption, energy activism, energy security and climate change. A conceptual review is now required for the consolidation and logical extension of this field. Within this exploration, we give an account of its core tenets: distributional, recognition and procedural. Later we promote the application of this three-pronged approach across the energy system, within the global context of energy production and consumption. Thus, we offer both a conceptual review and a research agenda, providing suggestions of how the field of energy justice could be advanced. Throughout, we explore the key dimensions of this new agenda - its evaluative and normative reach – demonstrating that energy justice offers, firstly, an opportunity to explore where injustices occur, developing new processes of avoidance and remediation and recognizing new sections of society. Secondly, we illustrate that energy justice provides a new stimulating framework for bridging existing and future research on energy production and consumption when whole energy systems approaches are integrated into research designs. In conclusion, we suggest three areas for future research: investigating the non-activist origins of energy justice, engaging with economics, and uniting systems of production and consumption.